Pearl Lam is a an actor and Freehold alum. She recently finished Freehold’s Meisner Progression taught by Freehold co-founder Robin Lynn Smith, and even more recently received a Gregory Award for Outstanding Performance in a Play for her portrayal of the 11th century writer Murasaki in Seattle Public Theater’s and SIS’s joint production of “Unrivaled.” We talked to Pearl about how she got started in acting, how the Meisner classes helped her grow as an actor, and what the future holds.
Can you talk a little bit about your acting journey?
I first started theatre in 10th grade. I was watching Orphan Black, and I just loved Tatiana Maslany in it—and she’s actually the reason I started acting. So ever since then, I have just been doing whatever productions, taking whatever classes I can. I did not study drama in university, but two years ago I quit my corporate day job, and I’ve kind of just been doing this full time now with some other freelance stuff. But it’s been a really fun and rewarding journey. My background is mostly in comedy, but in the last few years, I’ve kind of branched out more. I’ve never considered myself a dramatic actor, but Freehold gave me the confidence to do that. So it’s been really, really rewarding to feel like I can dip my toes in all these in all these pools. That’s a weird metaphor.
What was your experience with comedy?
How did I start? I started on YouTube. I made skits and sketches for a few years, but then after a while, I realized all my audience members were like 12 year old boys, and I wasn’t having fun writing the skits anymore, so I stopped. And then I did some stand up and improv throughout college, but never fully loved it. Comic acting and sketches have always been my go to, but stand up and improv were training tools and outlets when sketches weren’t available.
And then I also like being a writer, myself. Most of the things I write are comedies. It’s great because it gives you a vehicle to put yourself on stage or on film when you can’t book anything. So these days I don’t do improv or stand up anymore, but I do a lot of comedic writing.
What was it about Meisner that helped you and helped your process?
I had performance experience. I had taken some classes at UW, but I had gotten to a place where I was pre-planning tactics, which worked really well for monologues and audition sides and for comedy too. But I was also very self conscious on stage a lot of the time. I was very aware that I was acting or being perceived, and Robin’s class gave me a process that I can lean into. I feel like this is a process I can now take into professional productions and feel confident and generate whole, meaningful experiences for myself and my character.
The class also taught me how to be professional. Like, this is the work you need to do before you step foot into the rehearsal room on day one. And the third thing, after taking Robin’s class is—and she says this, too—sometimes you’ll slip out of the moment, but it’s really about just getting into that practice of getting back in the moment and dropping back in. And since the Meisner class, that self consciousness has drastically decreased, or even gone down to zero in a lot of cases. I just feel more free, I feel more confident on stage, I feel more engaged. I’m not worried about the audience or the camera or anything. It’s just about what’s happening right now, right here with my scene partners.
You had a busy 2024. What was that like?
I don’t have anything booked for next year right now, but in 2024, I was very grateful for having a lot of productions that I could practice the skills I was learning in class. So, yeah, [“Unrivaled], and then did a couple shows at Seattle Public and I just recently wrapped Love’s Labour’s Lost at Seattle Shakespeare.
Are there specific things or anecdotes from your recent productions that you can connect to the work you did with Meisner?
Totally. I guess the best example was “Unrivaled” at Seattle Public Theater during the spring.
I don’t think I could have done it without Robin’s class and without Robin’s help. She’s just so gracious with her time. too. I feel like I bombarded her with a lot of questions outside of class because I was having a hard time figuring out how to implement the tools that we were talking about.
I just haven’t ever had a performance like that. It was just like a really magical experience because the cast and the production team were just incredible people. It was like the perfect marriage of coming to the end of Meisner and having all these tools, and getting to put it into practice, and then seeing that it worked.
What was it like portraying someone from the 11th century [for “Unrivaled”]? Do you approach that differently?
I mean, honestly, I wasn’t really sure what to do, but I read. So I played Murasaki, who was a renowned poet, writer, and novelist. She’s known for the world’s first novel, “The Tale of Genji.” So I read her work, and then I read her colleagues’ work. But Rosie Narasaki, the playwright, does such a beautiful job of translating Murasaki’s work into this character. So while I did pull some from historical research, a lot of it was what Rosie had put on the page. And I just used Robin’s techniques that she taught us, like particularization, a lot of daydreaming. I just spent a lot of time daydreaming, imagining, visualizing, feeling, writing. So I don’t know how much of it was dramaturgical research. I leaned more into Rosie’s writing and the creative inspiration from that.
After an eventful 2024, what do you hope the future holds? What are the things that you’re excited about exploring?
So I don’t have anything, but I am working on a screenplay right now—my goal is to produce it next year. I won’t put a specific time on it, but that’s the goal. And I would still love to keep doing whatever theatre and film can come my way, just really getting into characters that I don’t usually get to play, or aren’t like me, or just people who get to be more free.
The reason why I wanted to work on a screenplay was because there are so many brilliant actors in Seattle that I know and work with. As an actor, it is hard to just keep auditioning and auditioning and auditioning and auditioning and waiting. And I wanted to give myself and collaborators a platform to do something together. So I’m excited for that. We’ll see how it goes.
[My screenplay] is like that solo show I did, “XXX Island” [which satirized reality TV]. It’s similar to that. For the last five years, I’ve been obsessed with reality TV. A lot of the things I’ve written in the past—like some sketches and beginnings of TV pilots—have always revolved around this idea of a satire of reality TV. So it’s going to be that. But the nitty gritty I have not figured out yet.
